Dracula

Dracula lovers, your ship has come in – and yes, it’s carrying the irresistible Count and his coffins of Transylvanian soil. It’s docked in North Hollywood, where “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” plays at the Noho Arts Center through March 22.

Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula,” the bible of vampire literature, has spawned countless retellings, not all of them worthy of their literary ancestor. Fortunately, director Ken Sawyer adapted Hamilton Deane’s 1924 play, authorized by Stoker’s widow and revised by John Balderston in 1927. The Noho production feels authentic and contemporary at the same time, and has a great balance of horror, romance and even a few laughs.

In this version, Mina (understudy Erica Hess at last Sunday's show) is Count Dracula's (Robert Arbogast) first victim, and Lucy Seward (Mara Marini), Jonathan Harker’s (J.R. Mangels) fiancée, becomes the Count’s next conquest (and, it turns out, his reincarnated love from centuries past). Lucy’s mother, Dr. Lily Seward (Karesa McElheny), runs the asylum, where Renfield (Alex Robert Holmes) tries to resist being a slave to the “Master.” Dr. Seward’s friend, professor Van Helsing (Joe Hart), who has a helpful knowledge of folklore, leads her and Harker in a quest to kill the vampire.

Yes, there are plot and character condensations, and no scenes in Transylvania, but those are not to be considered flaws, even by this Stoker purist who has not found satisfactory updates in Anne Rice’s books or Buffy and Angel and has not checked out “Twilight” for fear of similar disappointment. The essence of the classic in the Noho Arts Center Ensemble/David Elzer production is as potent as wolfsbane or garlic is to vampires.

All of the actors, without exception, are outstanding. But, of course, Dracula is the star. Arbogast, with his lean chiseled body and low-riding tight leather pants, is a reincarnation of the sexy, seductive and pretentiously evil vampires played by Frank Langella or Gary Oldman. But Arbogast’s version is no imitation; only once, and to good effect, did a line recall Oldman’s delivery in the 1992 Francis Ford Coppola movie. And a sexy “Dracula” is only appropriate given the themes of the classic novel, including the Victorian notion that female sexuality is a sin and that women willing to be tempted by the evil Count must have their souls saved.

Marini (who usually plays Mina but was cast last Sunday as Lucy) could work as a horror movie screamer and made a convincing transformation from meek innocent to voluptuous vampire. Holmes has a meaty role as an asylum patient who climbs walls and eats flies, but is sane enough to know evil when he sees it. Even the smaller roles of Butterworth and Wells, played by Chad Coe and Tahni Delong, are distinct and interesting characters.

The set design by Desma Murphy is worthy of a film with plenty of lush, romantic details and ingenious devices, like torn “ship sails” that economically transform part of the stage into the ship on which Dracula traveled from Transylvania to England. The literary touch of painting a copy of Henry Fuseli’s 1781 “Nightmare” on the set’s back wall was a creative and thoughtful addition. Throughout the play, a soft light usually stayed on the incubus sitting on a sleeping woman’s chest.

Paula Higgins’ costumes evoke a Victorian era with a contemporary twist. And the atmosphere’s thrills and chills are intensified by Sawyer’s sound and Ovation Award winner Luke Moyer’s lighting. The theater is filled variously with bat sounds, lightning, howling wolves, smoke and more.

The only weakness in the production came near the end. I was unsure what happened to Lucy because Van Helsing says they cut out her heart to save her soul -- but then that doesn’t appear to be true. Even so, that’s easily forgiven after an hour and a half of brilliant theater.

Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm and Sundays at 3 pm through March 22.
Noho Arts Center, 11136 Magnolia Blvd., North Hollywood, (818) 508-7101, ext. 7, www.thenohoartscenter.com

Robert Arbogast as Dracula and Joe Hart as Van Helsing in the Noho Arts Center Ensemble production of “Dracula,” directed by Ken Sawyer. Photo by Michael Lamont/courtesy of Demand PR

Vienna, Mehta and Lang Lang

File this under “hard-to-believe-but-true”: The Vienna Philharmonic has never played at Disney Hall. With all the world-class orchestras the LA Phil has been bringing in since moving to their new home in 2003, that’s a surprise. But, finally, the Vienna Phil, one of the world’s undisputed best for a century and a half, makes its debut on Tuesday, Feb. 3, and returns Wednesday, Feb. 4. Both concerts begin at 8 pm.

And that’s not all: The conductor will be LA’s beloved Zubin Mehta, who served as Music Director of the LA Phil between 1962 and 1978, and holds the title of Honorary Conductor here. Mehta is a classical superstar, having led the New York Philharmonic for 13 years and been named Music Director for life of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra as well as Honorary Conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, and Bavarian State Orchestra.

The Vienna-themed program on Tuesday will feature Wolf’s “Italian Serenade,” Marx’s “Four Songs” (with soprano Angela Maria Blasi), and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9. Wednesday brings Wagner’s “Rienzi Overture,” Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2, and Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 “Great.”

As if you needed more enticement, 26-year-old Lang Lang, dubbed “the hottest artist on the classical music planet” by the New York Times, will perform the Chopin Piano Concerto (which he recently recorded with Mehta and the Vienna Phil) at Wednesday’s concert.

Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., (323) 850-2000, www.laphil.com

Two Lives, Two Stories

LA photographer Karl Larsen contacted me last weekend with a story idea: “I know this lady in Pasadena who is African-American and she is the City Attorney for Pasadena. Her name is Michelle Bagneris, and her grandmother just turned 109 years old last week!! As a gift I am going to give her a print of Barack and Michelle Obama on the parade route. She was too old and frail to go to the inauguration herself, so I feel this may be the next best thing.”

Not only did I want to know more about how the centenarian Lucile Burrell and her family felt about the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States, but I also wanted to learn the story behind the photo itself and more about the photographer whom I had hired to shoot Brian Wilson and Paul McCartney for stories I worked on as an arts editor at a weekly newspaper.

The Big Picture
Attached in Larsen’s email was his photo of the President and First Lady, smiling, holding hands and waving to an expectant nation on Jan. 20. For so many people, of so many races and backgrounds, that day was historic. Larsen said being at the parade was a “spiritual experience,” a sentiment that many in this country who went into the voting booths on Nov. 4 and only watched the inauguration on TV completely understand.

But Burrell, having been born in Arkansas on Feb. 2, 1900, was someone who perhaps had a much deeper understanding of the significance of the occasion. “She was born just one generation removed from slavery,” Larsen said, “and I thought I would have to give her a photo of this monumental event that I was fortunate enough to capture.”

I drove with Larsen on Presidents Day to Inglewood, where Big Mama, as she is affectionately called by her family and friends, lives with her daughter Rohelia Beal and son-in-law Meredith Beal, Bagneris’ parents.

Big Mama – who had met George Washington Carver as a child when he came to Arkansas to teach food-canning skills and stayed at her family’s home – didn’t say much during our visit, but when she saw the 16-by-20-inch framed print of the Obamas, she seemed excited and said “hallelujah.” She even began to sing a little bit.

She had a similar reaction when the family watched the inauguration together on TV. Bagneris told me, “We experienced chills and watery eyes, and Big Mama exclaimed ‘hallelujah,’ and as Obama spoke, she shouted to him to ‘tell the world!’”

All three generations were overcome with emotion, Bagneris recalled. “My 86-year-old father choked up, saying that, having been raised as a child in East Texas, he never in his wildest dreams imagined that he would live to see the day that a Black man would be president.”

Before we left, Larsen posed with the entire family and gave Big Mama a kiss on the forehead, both of which I captured with his camera.

Afterward, Bagneris told me what the inauguration and Larsen’s gift meant to her. “My mother and I revel in the recognition that, although America continues to experience challenges in race relations, this represents a giant leap forward and something that my children will recognize came with great sacrifice, presenting a hopeful future. Karl’s photo of the First Couple represents the strength, unity and determination that I have seen in my parents and grandparents, and that I hope to convey with my husband.”

Behind the Camera
Larsen didn’t have media credentials to attend Barack Obama’s inauguration, but that didn’t stop him from flying to Washington, D.C., last month. On Jan. 19, he scoped out the mall and realized without a ticket he couldn’t get close enough to the stage, so he visited the parade route, found a good spot and noted things like the lighting at the time of day he expected to take the photo.

The next day he awoke at 3 a.m. and was the first civilian in line for the parade at 4:35 a.m., behind police, volunteers and media. By 7 a.m., he was in place and trying to stay warm – in thermals, ski pants and goggles – waiting for the president to pass by at 4 p.m. Apparently, it’s not just the National Geographic photographers stalking wildlife and ideal skies who have incredible patience.

Over the course of nine hours of talking and even dancing to Motown, country and more over the PA system, Larsen got to know the people around him. “We all were strangers at 7 a.m. and by 4 p.m. were lifetime friends,” he said, explaining that he also promised to send them all a copy of the photo if they were careful not to bump him during that one crucial moment – which came at 4:05 p.m.

He had maybe a matter of seconds to take a photo of the Obamas, who hopped back into the limo right after he snapped it.

I knew that Larsen, who started as the house photographer for the West Hollywood House of Blues and has worked extensively for Rolling Stone magazine – and whose image of Paris Hilton crying in the back of a police cruiser made newspapers across the country – was good at his job. Hearing about his trip to D.C. and seeing his “catch” confirmed that.

Even so, Larsen’s agency has not yet sold the photo to any media outlets (most likely because many have subscriptions to agencies like the Associated Press and Reuters). So Larsen gave one photo as a gift to Burrell and a 24-by-30-inch giclee print to a friend’s mother who happens to be a Congresswoman in Florida. She had flown with the President on Air Force One when he visited her district and wanted to send it to the White House as a thank you.

In the meantime, a giclee print of the Obamas, arguably the biggest celebrities in the world right now, is at the Celebrity Vault gallery in Beverly Hills along with a few other images by Larsen, as well as ones by famous photographers Richard Miller, Bert Stern, and Gered Mankowitz, who photographed icons such as James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and Jimi Hendrix, respectively. Larsen is investigating the possibility of Obama signing a number of his limited-edition giclee prints so that he can sell them at the hip gallery on Canon Drive and donate a portion to charity.

At the gallery, in addition to photos of Slash whom Larsen had intimate access to as the official photographer on Velvet Revolver’s first album tour, are some others by Larsen. They aren’t portraits, but emotional images that quietly tell LA stories. The shuttered Tower Records on Sunset is a symbol of the end of a musical era. The inflatable pig that escaped during a Roger Waters concert at the Hollywood Bowl in 2006 and floated toward a full moon makes it obvious that being a photographer is as much about being in the right place at the right time as it is about doing your homework.

As for his black-and-white image of the Hollywood sign with smoke ominously billowing behind it, Larsen said at the moment he heard the fires were encroaching on the city’s world-famous icon, “If the Hollywood sign was going to burn down – then I was going to have to get that photo.”

Visit the Celebrity Vault gallery or website to see more of Larsen’s work: 345 N. Canon Drive, Beverly Hills 90210, (888) 838-1881, www.thecelebrityvault.com

Visit Wikipedia to learn about the controversy about Larsen’s famous photo of Paris Hilton being incorrectly attributed to Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press photographer Nick Ut on ABC’s “20/20.”

A Must-Hear Concert

If you’ve heard the 6,134-pipe Disney Hall organ, you know why every opportunity should be taken to hear it again. The next chance is Sun., Feb. 22, when the Los Angeles Master Chorale presents an evening of “Chorus + Organ” at 7 p.m.

Now if you’re thinking this kind of music is not your thing, remember that Carl Orff’s popular “Carmina Burana” – a collection of dynamic songs based on medieval poems about everything from spring to drinking and which you’ve undoubtedly heard in movies and commercials – is choral music. Furthermore, the Master Chorale is not just any ensemble – it is the nation’s, and maybe the world’s, most innovative chorale group, thriving under its vibrant music director, Grant Gershon. They’ve commissioned 21 and premiered 51 new works, bringing vital spirit to an art form that goes all the way back to medieval Gregorian Chants.

I don’t know much about chorale music, but I was blown away by the gorgeous artistry of one of the Master Chorale’s recent concerts featuring a collaboration between choreographer Cheam Shapiro and composer Chinary Ung for the world premiere of “Spiral XII.” (As an interesting side note, the singers of the Master Chorale have been featured on movie soundtracks, including a personal favorite, Francis Ford Coppola’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”)

On Sunday’s six-piece program are the world premieres of “Dream Variations” by Andrea Clearfield and Steven Sametz’s “Music’s Music” as well as the West Coast premiere of Nico Muhly’s “Expecting the Main Things From You.” Plus, there will be music by Bruckner, Liszt and Part. Christoph Bull is the featured organist.

Clearfield’s “Dream Variations,” written for flute, viola, harp and organ, will be performed with the Debussy Trio. “All About Jazz” said of the composer that she “is to be thanked for ‘daring to disturb the universe.’”

Sametz’s “Music’s Music,” was commissioned by Kathie and Alan Freeman in honor of Gershon, Executive Director Terry Knowles and the Master Chorale and features double choir, mezzo-soprano, obbligato clarinet and harp.

“Expecting the Main Things from You,” a three-movement piece for organ and string quartet, sounds like another rare treat, as the work of Muhly, who has collaborated with the likes of Bjork and Philip Glass, is rarely performed on the West Coast. He’ll also be at the concert.

Also of note is Arvo Pärt's “De Profundis,” for men's chorus, which, the press materials indicate, “starts at the lowest depth, as its title suggests, and uncoils into an eight-minute long crescendo and thundering climax with tam-tam (gong) and organ.” If that doesn’t sound awesome, I don’t know what does.

Tickets start at $19. Student rush tickets are $10.

Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles 90012, (213) 972-7282, www.lamc.org

photo by Steve Cohn Photography/courtesy of LA Master Chorale

Art at the Armory

Time is winding down on your chance to see "at the Brewery Project," an exhibit that ends March 1 at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena. The Brewery Project was a showcase for artists, by artists, first organized at the Brewery Art Colony near downtown LA by artist John O'Brien in September 1993. Between then and May 2007, the project was responsible for more than 35 exhibits, curated by as many as 20 different artists, and featuring photography, painting, ceramics, collage and more.

The retrospective at the Armory provides a fascinating glimpse of the contemporary art scene in LA. Among the most fun works on display is Keiko Fukazawa's "Good Luck" with a wedding cake -- made of white ceramic Maneki Neko (Good Luck) cats topped with the colorful ones that are ubiquitous in Little Tokyo -- paired with a kimono decorated with graffiti art. In front of Thomas Muller's enlarged photos of a clay elephant balancing on a gorgeous ripe tomato are the actual items in plexiglas boxes on wooden pedestals -- only it takes a while to figure out what's going on in those boxes because the tomatoes have almost completely decomposed since the installation.

Armory Center for the Arts, 145 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena 91103, (626) 792-5101, www.armoryarts.org

Keiko Fukazawa, Good Luck, 2005, clay and kimono, kimono: 60 x 50 x 3 inches, ceramic cake: 60 x 22 x 22 inches/photo courtesy of Armory Center for the Arts

The 'Ring' Begins

Following an enchanting “Magic Flute,” LA Opera unfurls “Das Rheingold,” the first of four operas in Wagner’s Ring Cycle, “Der Ring des Nibelungen” (“Nibelung’s Ring”). Fantasy and adventure combine in a tale of a Nibelung dwarf who creates from the gold of the Rhine a magic ring that gives its bearer power over the world. Inspired by German and Scandinavian myths, Wagner’s 19th-century epic is filled with gods, warriors and giants – and may win over an admirer or two of JRR Tolkien. The Ring Cycle is an ambitious undertaking for any opera company, and LA Opera aims to impress with acclaimed German artist Achim Freyer on board to dazzle LA crowds with his direction and design. At a mere 2 hours 25 minutes, “Das Rheingold” is the shortest work in the Ring Cycle, which continues when LA Opera General Director Placido Domingo stars in “Die Walkure” in April.

Sat., Feb. 21, at 7:30 p.m.; Wed., Feb. 25, at 7:30 p.m.; Sun., March 1; Thurs., March 5, at 7:30 p.m.; Sun., March 8; Wed., March 11, at 7:30 p.m.; Sun., March 15
Wed., Thurs., Sat. at 7:30 p.m.; Sun. at 2 p.m.

Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles 90012, (213) 972-8001, www.laopera.com

If you want some help figuring out Wagner's "Das Rheingold" before you go to the LA Opera production, get over to the Brand Library on Sat., Feb. 21, at 2 pm for a free talk by Jackie Johns of the Los Angeles Opera Speaker Bureau.

Glendale Public Library, 1601 W. Mountain St., Glendale 91201, (818) 548-2051, www.brandlibrary.org

photo by Monika Rittershaus/courtesy of LA Opera

Documentary Film Events

Let’s face it: You have no chance of getting into the Oscars. But you can get into the International Documentary Association’s 27th Annual Nominees Reception, hosted by comedienne extraordinaire Lily Tomlin, on Wed., Feb. 18, at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. There, you’ll get a glimpse of the documentary features and shorts up for Oscars this year and hear from the filmmakers, who usually have a tremendously passionate stake in the material -- because god knows they aren’t making any money – and create amazing works of art with true stories, meant to inform, inspire, incite emotion, or all of the above.

The nominated documentary features are:
Werner Herzog’s “Encounters at the End of the World” about a hidden society living in Antarctica
Scott Hamilton Kennedy’s “The Garden” about a community garden in South Central LA
James Marsh’s “Man on Wire” about high wire walker Philippe Petit
Tia Lessin and Carl Deal’s “Trouble the Water” about an aspiring rapper in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina
Ellen Kuras’ “The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)” about the struggle of one family from Laos, filmed over 23 years

Wed., Feb. 18, 6:30 pm hors d’oeuvres and wine, 8 pm program: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 8949 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills 90211
For tickets and info: http://www.documentary.org/reception09

Then DocuDay on Sat., Feb. 21, provides the unique opportunity to see all five features and four shorts, since most so rarely make it to the theater. Films run from 9 am to 11:55 pm (what happens to documentarians at midnight?), and all-day passes are available.
Sat., Feb. 21: Writers Guild of America Theater, 135 S. Doheny Drive, Beverly Hills 90211
For tickets and info: http://docuday.eventbrite.com/